The Bull and the Broom

A fence separated my brother and me from a mean bull who snorted and struck the ground with its front hoof.  My brother encouraged me to throw rocks at the bull and we liked to see it run away.  One leg was shorter than rest making it limp and the metal ring in its nose made it look wild. It would stare at us a lot and we were fascinated by it.

One day, we began throwing rocks at the bull and it came charging at us. We had no way of knowing that the fence had been knocked down as we stood and watched the beast head toward us.  Suddenly, my brother yelled, "RUN."  I started running as fast as my four year old legs could go as I followed my five year old brother.  Behind me I could hear snorting and heavy breathing.


A haystack loomed in front of us so we scampered up as fast as we could and reaching the top we turned and looked down at the bull circling the haystack. We were both crying and yelling for my mother to come help us. The bull stood with its sides heaving,  looked at the hay and kept hitting the ground with its hoof.

My mother must have seen our predicament and came running with a broom in her hand. "Shoo," she
yelled as she waved a broom in front of her and toward the bull. The bull turned and ran back into the field behind the broken fence.  We scurried down the haystack and she grabbed each of us and hugged us tightly. "Stay away from that bull," she said, "it is a mean one and you could have been hurt." This was told to us in Spanish because my mother did not speak English.

Years later when we would tell the story, she laughed and said, "It was a little vaca " "No," we argued," it was not a small cow, it was a ferocious bull that limped and had a ring in its nose." She would smile and shake her head. I, for one, learned my lesson to never throw rocks at anything because I could get hurt!

"Grab the broom of anger and

 drive off the beast of fear."

Zora Neale Hurston